Installing Windows 7 From A Flash Drive

[thehulk18]

I was trying to install Windows 7 on my Toshiba laptop yesterday, on a new, clean, formatted hard drive. On the Expanding Files step it kept hanging up and giving me error messages and stopping Setup. The error messages were:

 

"Windows cannot install required files. The file may be corrupt or missing. Make sure all files required for installation are available,

and restart the installation"

Error Code: 0x80070017

 

also

 

E:\Sources\WDSCORE.dll is either not designated to run on Windows, or it contains an error.

 

I Googled both errors and found it was a fairly common happening when trying to install Windows 7.

Some of the suggestions to overcome the errors were confusing, and some were as simple as swapping the CD/DVD drive.

The one I liked best was found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd535816.aspx

It worked like a charm and installed in less than half the normal time, and now I have Windows 7 Home Premium on a thumb drive

for use anytime as long as I have a legitimate OS Key.

The only thing not clear in the procedure is that at each Command Prompt, I had to type in the Drive and its number before the command itself.

Other than that, it worked great.

[mel8again]

I found an easier one here. but before I did it I slipstreamed SP1 into Windows 7, made an ISO file and then burned it to a DVD using Nero 8 Burning ROM. When I finished I copied the new DVD to the bootable flash drive. I did not encounter any errors during the whole operation.

 

Things I noticed:

 

Diskpart does not work if you have more than one flash drive plugged in.

 

On my computer I have to change the BOIS to bootup to the USB. The flash drive has to be plugged into the USB port in order to change it. After you have installed Windows and you remove the flash drive the bios reverts back to booting up from the hard drive. The USB ports are no longer first in the boot order. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be and I just didn't know.

Edited March 31, 2011 by mel8again

[Joe C]

I installed windows 7 from a flash drive onto my netbook (no cd/dvd drive) and it worked like a charm